


Synonymous Angels

by aderyn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cemeteries, Codes & Ciphers, Grief/Mourning, Homeless Network, Hope, Language of Flowers, Pre and Post Reichenbach, The City of London - Freeform, Urban angels, what we don't, what we see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-23 20:32:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s on the side of the angels…and they’re on his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synonymous Angels

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [quarryquest](http://quarryquest.livejournal.com/) and [ khorazir](http://archiveofourown.org/users/khorazir/pseuds/khorazir), with so many thanks.
> 
>  
> 
> [Beautiful cover art by Hamstermoon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/941782)

 

John wonders sometimes if he saw Sherlock coming. If he didn’t, he must have been blind.

He did see him leave though, or he thinks he did, and now the world’s a graveyard.

15 May. The cold gardeners come and go. 

At the cemetery the volunteers, or no, those sentenced to community service, drift among the monuments, among the winged ruins, clearing and straightening.

Summer grows yellow under the citrines of spring.

Transitions fold the limbics to origami, an orchid, a crane, an inbuilding of seasons, a bloom.

London makes way for it.

For him.

*****       

Sherlock denied being a hero because the label didn’t suit him, and of course he’d scoff at _angelic;_ he wasn’t.

But in the rook-haunted cemetery there are bunches left for love, for service, for grief, and not far from his marble marker a weeping angel draped with flowers and leaves, the twin of whom John has seen elsewhere.

_You can buy angels on the open market, Sherlock, but there was only one of you._

Obviously.

There’s something in her stony eyes.

*****

“Um,” John says to the statue, “this is kind of embarrassing.”

“But you look like, well … would you mind if talked to you awhile?”

_I can’t talk to a faceless grave anymore._

A rook calls from somewhere, rustles with evening.

Shadows shift over the molded leaves, but his angel doesn’t answer.

*****

Molly’s hair is soft on her shoulders when John walks into the morgue.

Oh, god. She let him out of the world.

She can bring him back in.

Not yet.

“John, oh, I wish I’d known …”

Her lab coat’s off one shoulder and the lipstick’s straying out of bounds. A garden of a face, John might have thought, if he were looking, overgrown.

“Just wanted to,” John says, clears his throat, “say hello.”

"Oh, um, well in that case, coffee?”

Easy enough to swallow something bitter.

Easier to speak now, John thinks, among the dead.

*****

Or that’s what he tells her, his sorrowful angel, the next time he goes.

Brings an extra bunch of mums for her. Nods to Sherlock’s stone and sets them down.

“You haven’t seen him, have you?”

A bird-filled quiet.

“Of course you haven’t.”

Her face is composed, a subtle tear, some beauty in it.

*****

Once, on a case, he met one of Sherlock’s network with a face like that.

He was exhausted, trying not to show it, when she finally appeared waifish and rain-wet, handed Sherlock a paper sack and stopped. She doesn’t look like she doesn’t live anywhere, is what John thought; the city’s got her in its palm.  
  
“Eleri,” Sherlock said, palming a note, poking his partner awake, “help me get him in a cab.”

John was in their hands before he knew it, propped up in the seat. Eleri (flowergirl, matchgirl, urchin) fanned a hand at them, looked like feathers.

“Baker Street,” Sherlock said to the cabbie, “take us home.”

Out the window a hushed London; Eleri disappeared into the three-fingered dawn.

*****

It’s only a little strange then, when he sees her at the cemetery, drifting with the others among the stones, straightening, raking the graves clear of leaves.

More strange though when she drops him a familiar wink, nods to his angel, hands him a twist of wild aster.

“For him.”

_That’s for trust._

*****

Eleri waits for Molly sometimes, when she’s coming off work. Sherlock introduced them under some shadowy circumstances, and those linger as they will. Molly will hand her a key, a coin, a note, a secret. They’ll sit with smudges under their eyes, hunched over hot drinks in the weak light.

Sometimes Molly imagines them guarding a tomb, two tired women with arms out or around; teacups, flaming swords, dawn in common.

Doing what the stones do, wait.

Keep watch.

*****

“You may be mass market, but you’re still beautiful," John says to his angel, whose leaves are bright today with fractured sunlight.

“Or what I mean is … you know, unique is overrated.”

A bird, crow this time, calls harshly from somewhere above them.

“Keep watch over him, will you?” John says, “I don’t think I’m doing a very good job.”

“I mean I didn’t.”

*****

There’s a rhythm to them, cemeteries, a kind of life in the mowing, the clearing, the searching, the digging, the gathering and leaving, the visitors, the volunteers, the curious, the stricken, the morbid, the compelled.

The resigned. The messages from sources unseen. The codes.

These for love, for faith, for grief.

The things he never would have noticed before.

What for you, Sherlock, what for you. What says _you left me you bastard_. What says _why._

*****

Summer unfolds.

John doesn’t go to therapy.

He goes to work.

Doctors people.

Washes his hands again, again.

Goes to the cemetery, watches the leaves shift tones, brushes Sherlock’s monument with his clean fingers.

Says hello to his sorrowful friend.

Asks her what she’d say to Sherlock, should she ever see him again.

Wonders at the shadows on the way home.

*****

It’s difficult to see them, the city’s angels, crouched on buildings, on bridges, in stairwells dark with old crimes, watchful guardians of churches and hospitals and car parks, bearing witness to the sorrows of the world.

Sherlock saw them, of course.

When he dreams though, away now in other places, weary or feverish or starved, when he hallucinates, having bled onto hotel carpet for an hour, fingers to his pulse and willing it not to stop, he sees only himself, falling, arms out, towards his own body, arms out, blood already fanning out on the pavement.

And John’s face.

*****

The leaves start to drop early, before August is even done. The days are dry, the light slant, the city pewter and gold with it.

“Lovely day,” John says to his angel, glances over his shoulder at Sherlock, the place where he isn’t.

“What do think about it …”, another look, a scrape of boot through dirt, “er, making an early exit?”

Her pain’s not really in her face, he decides. The weeping’s in the lines, in the twining, the sweep of her drapery.

“You understand.”

*****

Mycroft raps on the door of John’s new flat with the tip of his umbrella.

His eyes are grave, and he doesn’t waste much time.

“I hear you’ve been having conversations with statuary, Doctor Watson.”

“Lovely to see you too."

“I’m concerned.”

“As you were for your brother.”

Mycroft flinches the tiniest bit. Before Sherlock, John thinks, he wouldn’t have noticed that kind of flicker, or given it much weight if he had.

“Are you going to ask me in?”

“No.”

He wonders for a minute if Mycroft will invite himself in anyway, or maybe have him abducted later, held for conversation.

But he only lowers the umbrella, drops his arm, gives John a nod and turns away.

“Take care what you say to her, then.”

_Or just take care._

*****

He’s never seen the British Government at the cemetery, but on the following Monday there’s a government issue-looking bouquet of pink lilies at the grave. A single one at the feet of his angel.

Eleri drifts in from among the headstones and looks at the lilies. Sticks some dried-out blossoms in with them and gives the whole thing a tweak.

“He liked the dead ones best.”

She looks different somehow, the urchin rubbed off, her face clear.

“Are you …” John starts, but she gives him the feather-wave and turns away.

He sits, rubs his eyes, lets a hand fall softly on the hem of his angel’s drape.

“Oh, er, sorry, didn’t mean to give offence.”

“She’s right though, you know. He did like the dead ones best.”

_And now so do I._

_And the Government might as well know it.  
_

*****

There’s a dried arrangement, dark roses, some sort of grass, oak leaves, on the table in John’s new flat. For autumn, for remembrance.

*****

He thinks about the last things he said to Sherlock of course, the last things he heard, saw, might have seen, in his eyebrows, his stiff shoulders, his cipher of a mouth. But slipping into sleep also the quirked mouth and cocked head of Sally Donovan, Mrs. Hudson’s shaking hands, the last time he visited, promised to come up again, Molly handing him a cup of black coffee, Harry’s cornflower eyes, cautious and sisterly. Eleri in the street, sooty, smiling sadly at Sherlock; in the graveyard, clean, her arms around a stone angel.

He dreams of Sherlock wrapped in leaves, robed, body aloof but eyes alight with mournful warmth.

_Is this how think of me now John, really?_

A twinkle. A darkening in the atmosphere.

_They didn’t love me_ , Sherlock mutters, in from the dead.

His hands are cold, his heart a hollow, his arms flung out.

_Yeah well_ , John says, (straighten the drapes, tug at them, hands to cold neck, wrists, face), _I do,_ ( _so it’s not a problem then. Is it._ )

Sherlock’s eyes are closed; he’s quiet.

It isn’t very difficult really, bringing that into the world.

Dream-world, anyway.

*****

The days coalesce, brighten, go grey with frost and fog.

John wears two jumpers to the graveyard, carries a bundle of bittersweet.

Sets it down, bright on the brown earth. Sits down.

“Have you ever …” he says to his angel.

Sherlock asked him once, just once, when he was worn from chasing murderers and ill besides, if he’d ever been in love.

“I … no, I don’t actually think so.”

“Of course you have, John. Don’t be ridiculous.”

"Then why'd you ..."

A hot hand on his, Sherlock’s head, a tangle, slipping down on the pillow.

Earlier he'd fired a gun, dropped another man with a gun in half a breath.

Sherlock fell asleep like that, no taking it back.

Sad curvilinears above him now, a still face, a still-green acorn stuck among the molded leaves.

“No of course you haven’t been,” John says, “you’re made of stone, or… some kind of composite.”

*****

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, lets out a breath, “are you …”

“Slow down.”

“ … still talking to angels, yes.”

“Graveyard furniture can be surprisingly animated.”

“Yes she’s …yes, she’s keeping an eye out.”

“Are you all right?”

“How much blood?"

“Well yes, we can do that. But he’s…”

“Sherlock.”

“Put out the cigarette first.”

“I assure you, I ... all right then.”

“When you come home, you …”

The soft outrage of a disconnect.

_Take care to be good._

*****

Sherlock’s monument is shining, even in the dull afternoon light.

 “I’ve been in love,” John’s angel says.

The bolt of adrenalin pushes him up, propels him back from the grave.

Eleri peers out at him from behind a wing.

She looks sleeker, wrapped in a black coat that looks new, her black hair longer, something twisted in it, a silvered bit of ribbon, a clip.

“Jesus you…”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist. May I?” She sits there, at the angel’s feet, pats his spot.

He might as well sit down.

“Got a cigarette?”

“Bad for you.”

“Thought you might, you know, for him.”

“Haven't gone that far yet.”

Eleri looks at him, works her fingers in that odd way of hers.

“He was … he treated me well.”

“Yes I…”

“I can see you’re suffering.”

“I’m not…”

She lets a hand drop to his shoulder, stands up, glances at their mournful companion.

“What’s that?” she says.

“What’s what?”

Up at the trees, down at the earth.

A rook settling in. A crow.

“You hear it?”

“No.”

“Must just be the sound of things, you know, waiting to come up again. Plants and such. My mum used to say they had a sound.”

“I don't …”

“Listen,” she says, tugs her coat around her.

Waves at him as she goes.

*****

“What things have you got growing here?” John says to his angel.

_That I haven’t heard. That I haven’t seen._

*****

John finds a new bouquet at her feet the next day. Something blue, belled blossoms strange on the cusp of winter, and snowdrops, bound with a twist of blue wool.

“Did you see anyone here?”

Her face is solemn above her garments of stone.

“Would you tell me if you had?”

“Of course you would.”

He sits with the flowers in his lap for a long time, sits in the cold with his mass market angel and an empty grave, feels something twitch in his ribcage, begin to awaken.

*****

“No, I don’t believe so,” Mycroft says into the phone.

“He’s… no he’s just …”

“Sherlock.”

“You don’t have anything to…”

“No, still secure.”

“Sherlock.”

“We’ll keep him safe.”

Soft outrage in the disconnect. Maybe relief.

Mycroft drops his head briefly into his hands, folds them, looks up again, looks out over the faint fire of his city, over the guardians, the messengers and healers, over the shades and the angels of London.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [ The cold gardeners, the ice saints](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Saints)  
>  Thank you to [ Moranion](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Moranion/pseuds/Moranion) for those!
> 
>  
> 
> [The cemeteries of Sherlock, from quarryquest](http://quarryquest.livejournal.com/tag/cemeteries)  
> [Snowy sorrowful angel, quarryquest](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/5zbb6BIpHAR4sbJvoaDCXNMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink)  
> [Sorrowful angel, quarryquest](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7v5r3pV82fVj4Nbh5qWexNMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Aster, trust](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aster_%28Blume%29.jpg)  
> [ Red mums, I love](http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.glenleagreenhouses.com/redmum.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.glenleagreenhouses.com/fallmums.html&h=1227&w=1538&sz=281&tbnid=5qZKOsRLHoR3UM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=113&zoom=1&usg=__2AkmbGKBHE-eTSTq8CI35s_bbWc=&docid=e67Z-OFkfgU8NM&sa=X&ei=N-sPUuTbG6mMygHlyYE4&ved=0CDQQ9QEwAQ&dur=124)  
> [Oak, strength](http://www.meridian.k12.il.us/middle%20school/student_work/Ashley_trees/Black%20Oak%20Tree.html)  
> [ Bellflower, loss](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campanula)  
> [Snowdrop, hope](http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/gardens-gardening/your-garden/plant-finder/plant-details/kc/k300/galanthus-nivalis.aspx)  
> [Cornflower, or bachelor's button](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornflower)  
> [Bittersweet](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_berries_of_Bittersweet_-_geograph.org.uk_-_970950.jpg)


End file.
